


Antidote

by pinetreelady



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Allergies, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Vampire!Sid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 19:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17230142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinetreelady/pseuds/pinetreelady
Summary: Sid and Geno decide to take their relationship to the next level, but it doesn't go as planned.(See tags and author's note for more detail!)





	Antidote

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blacktofade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktofade/gifts).



> This is a pretty low-key, not-scary take on vampires, people, I'm just warning you. When I was assigned "Dracula" in college, I had to sleep with the lights on for like a week. I'm not a vampire girl. And yet, this happened. For one thing, certain people keep writing incredible S/G vampire fic. For another, blacktofade and I saw a tumblr post about how it would go if a vampire fed from someone who's anemic, and that spawned a conversation about whether a vampire could have an intolerance to someone's blood, and if there's the vampire equivalent of Lactaid. 
> 
> Also, there's some nausea/vomiting in this fic. I tried to keep it as not-graphic as possible because throwing up is gross, but I didn't want to blindside anyone, either. 
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to elisera, who makes things better. She saved me from making a couple of dumb mistakes and helped me not to overthink things too much.

"Geno," Sid says sleepily, still a little drunk, as the alarm on his phone blares to life. He smacks it silent, but he doesn’t let himself go back to sleep. They’ve got to get to the bus to make their flight back to Pittsburgh. 

Sid rubs his eyes and hopes the hangover won’t be too horrific when he tries to stand up. Geno barely stirs. 

Sid trails a hand up his back, then strokes through his hair. Geno loves having his head rubbed.

"Geno, I have to ask you something." They’d won, last night, here in Nashville, won _again,_ and the thought that had crystallized as soon as they’d clinched a playoff berth in April came raging to the surface when Sid had found his face plastered into Geno’s champagne-soaked neck in the locker room after their win. He can’t wait another moment to ask.

Geno rolls over, and Sid continues to scritch at his head. Geno presses into it, and cracks an eye open. Sid closes the distance between them, snuggles in under Geno's chin, face against his neck. The proximity to the tender skin over Geno’s pulse makes Sid’s gums tingle where his fangs want to drop. He runs his tongue over his teeth to quell the urge and pushes a knee in between Geno's thighs, and Geno rocks his hips against the pressure, making a contented sound. "Starting something, Sid?" he asks, voice rough with sleep.

Sid smiles against his neck. "I -- yeah," he says, and then stalls. His heart stutters. What if Geno says no? He breathes in, and it's a little shaky. "I want to ask you something?" He doesn't mean for it to sound as tentative as it does. 

Geno must sense that something's up, because suddenly his tone is a little wary when he says, "Yeah?"

Sid holds Geno's head in place, fingers running through his hair again, as he centers himself. "We've been doing this awhile now," he ventures. A year, it’s hard to believe.

He hasn’t felt this nervous since the night a year ago at Mario’s, Sid up against the wall, catching his breath, all the euphoric feelings cresting and overwhelming him, and he pushed off the wall, swayed into Geno's space, put his arms around Geno's neck and deliberately looked into his eyes, and then just as deliberately looked at his mouth, dropped open and pink, before flicking his eyes back to Geno's eyes. Good enough, he remembers thinking, and leaned up to press his mouth gently to Geno's.

He can still remember the noise, deep in Geno's throat, that he'd let out, as he kissed Sid back like he was dying for it. Geno's arm twining around his back, drawing their bodies flush. 

Now, Geno pulls against his hand and Sid lets him go, so Geno can make eye contact with him. “What is it, Sid?” 

Last summer, it had been so new, but they'd talked every few days and coming back to Pittsburgh together, playing all season, had been a delight. All through the long grind of the playoffs, Sid's other motivation besides back-to-back Cups to win again was to keep Geno with him as long as possible. 

Now he wants to mark their separation with something special. "When are you going to head back to Russia," he asks.

"You think about, already?" 

"Well. Yeah. I'm -- I'll miss you a lot." 

Geno's eyes soften. "Miss you too, Sid. You give me nice short summer again," his tone is light, but there's gravity in his eyes. 

"Yeah." Sid toys with Geno's fingers, and then brings his hand to his mouth to kiss Geno's palm. "I was wondering something, if -- if we have time before you go." There will be the parade and the parties, carting the Cup to a Pirates game and the Incline and the Zoo, as well as anything else PR dreams up. Not a lot of time for the two of them, if Geno's planning to go as soon as the celebrating dies down.

"Always make time for you," Geno says seriously.

"Then. I wanted to ask if." To steady his racing heart, Sid calls up the memory from last night, his face crushed into the sweaty crease of Geno’s neck in the locker room after the win, comes back to him. “I want to bite you." He forces himself to maintain eye contact. 

Geno's eyes widen, and he swallows. "I'm want, Sid." 

Sid lets out a breath. He’d be hard pressed to call it a sigh of relief, but.

“You don’t think I’m say yes?” Geno asks him, smiling.

“You, um. You never mentioned it, so I wasn’t. I didn’t …”

“Up to you to ask,” Geno says, seriously.

“Well, I’m glad,” Sid says. He can feel the itch under his skin, the throb of his fangs wanting to descend, at just the idea of Geno granting him permission. “I want it a lot.”

Geno smirks. “You show me how much you want.” 

Arousal flares through him. “What, now?” 

“Later,” Geno says, innocently. “No time, now.” He pushes up out of bed strolls to the bathroom, leaving Sid alone.

The rest of the day Sid can’t concentrate: on the bus, on the plane, back on the ground in Pittsburgh, all he can think about is biting Geno, the yield of his will and of his skin under Sid’s teeth, the trust implicit in it almost more heady than the idea of getting to drink from him. He has a drink to try to calm himself down but it doesn’t help. His fangs are on the constant verge of dropping. It’s like being a horny teenager on the constant verge of popping a boner.

~*~*~

They’re met by mobs of fans at the airport, they wave and smile and sign things and attempt not to let their drunkenness show too hard. Sid watches Rusty catch Olli when he stumbles, and shoots them both a look. Neither of them looks as chagrined as he’d like, but what can you do? Surely the city’s inclined to give them all a large pass after a second consecutive cup win.

Finally they’re back on the bus and then at the garage under the arena and standing around in little clumps of guys trying to decide where to go next. 

“Maybe it’s good for young guys to go with it, take it around,” Geno says. Desperate as he is to get Geno alone, Sid can’t quite let the Cup out of his sight yet. 

“Maybe I should let them all come back to mine?” 

Geno pouts at him, then sways close, unbearably tempting. “I’m think you want --” 

Every fiber of Sid’s being wants to take him home and claim him, right now. “Later,” he says, and flashes him a grin. Maybe lets Geno get a little glimpse of fang, just to watch his eyes darken.

“Party at mine!” he hollers, and hits the button to unlock his car. 

The party is a joyful blur, but eventually everything quiets down. Sid’s usually fine with guys crashing in guest rooms, but this time he makes sure everyone catches a Lyft home. Still, he gets hung up in the kitchen trying to find his extra paper towels to mop up the spilled beer, until Geno comes in and sends him a look with hot eyes.  
“Sid, now?” he asks, and, well, Sid can clean up tomorrow.

They stumble up the stairs together and into Sid’s bedroom, dropping their clothes hastily before tumbling into bed. 

It’s literally everything Sid’s been dreaming of, these last months, these last hours: pressed together, sweaty and panting, moving together, feeling his body wind tight toward orgasm. He picks up his head to meet Geno’s eyes, and Geno’s looking right at him, as if he knew he’d catch Sid looking. 

“Now?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Sid breathes, and he finds that sweet spot on Geno’s neck, breathes him in, and sucks gently on his skin, right where his pulse beats against Sid’s tongue. And then he doesn’t have to wait another moment to sink his teeth in and _drink_. Geno shudders beneath him, and Sid opens his mouth and feels the flutter of Geno’s pulse under his tongue, and comes right as he pierces the skin. The waves of his orgasm and the rhythm of sucking and swallowing make him feel better, even, than the moment Bettman handed him the Cup.

Geno sucks in a ragged breath and tenses against him, grinding his hips against Sid’s body and then relaxing, coming within moments of Sid. Sid’s barely conscious of it, though, focused on the dizzying high of Geno’s warm blood filling his mouth, coursing smoothly down his throat as he swallows and swallows, until he forces himself to stop, withdraw his fangs, and go back to sucking and licking gently at Geno’s hot skin until the blood stops flowing. Sid keeps his face against Geno’s shoulder, though, too overcome to voice what he’s feeling aloud.

Sid doesn’t know, at first, what’s awakened him, but his instinct catches up with his body and he bolts for the bathroom, the wave of nausea apparently strong enough to wake him out of a deep slumber. He makes it to the toilet in time, but spends entirely too long retching his guts out in the dark for his liking.

Mercifully, Geno sleeps through the entire thing. He’d be incredibly grumpy if Sid had woken him up. Sid flushes, gropes around for a washcloth, and wipes his mouth and shakes off the chill he can feel as his stomach seems to cautiously settle. He brushes his teeth and rinses with mouthwash just to eliminate the last of the grossness, and then he stays in there for a few minutes just to be sure, but creeps back across the room and tucks himself back into bed beside Geno and drifts back off to sleep.

In the morning, Sid barely remembers getting sick. He maybe feels a little dehydrated, but that’s only to be expected after the partying they’ve been doing. He pours himself a big glass of water before starting breakfast for himself and Geno, and it’s not until he’s scrambling eggs that the visceral memory occurs to him and he frowns for a moment, losing a few seconds until the pan starts to smoke. Dammit. He grabs a paper towel and wipes out the burnt butter, lets the pan cool, and doesn’t give it another thought as he focuses on making eggs without setting anything on fire. 

Geno comes into the kitchen, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. Sid eyes him fondly -- he looks like nothing more than a giant child, bedhead and pillow-creased in his loose pants and t-shirt he threw on. 

“Stop stare, Sid. Rude,” he says, and Sid reaches out an arm for him, tucks him close as Geno comes near. He kisses the side of Geno’s head absently.

“You want coffee?” 

“Yeah,” Geno says, and then peers at him closely. “You want me to make food?” 

Sid shrugs, shakes his head. “Nah, I’m almost done. You can butter the toast, if you want.”

“Sure you feel okay this morning?”

Shit, Geno must have registered his nighttime episode after all. 

He lifts a shoulder. He feels _fine_ , is the thing. No residual nausea or anything. It was just a fluke. “I’m fine.” He must’ve drunk more than he’d thought, is all.

“Good,” Geno says, and gives him a meaningful look, tilting his chin enough to show the mark where Sid had -- God -- _bitten_ him last night. Heat kindles in his gut and he returns Geno’s look, with interest. 

“Breakfast now,” he says, pushing Geno towards the toaster. “More of that … later.”

The thing is, Sid can’t feed from him too often, despite how much they might want to. It’s part of what makes it special, really, the fact that they have to be careful. They don’t want Geno to get worn down, even if it is summer and there’s long months of recovery with no hockey to play.

Still, Geno cajoles him into feeding once more, during their last night together before Geno heads off to Russia and Sid to Canada, going their separate ways for the summer. It’s a little soon for Sid’s preference, but they’ll have to go all summer and Geno will have plenty of time to recover. 

It’s just as intense as last time: the scent, the feeling of Geno’s flesh yielding sweetly beneath his teeth, the warm flow of his blood pulsing down Sid’s throat. They trade kisses long after the afterglow’s abated, just sharing space together and unwilling to sleep away too much of their last night together for weeks to come. 

It’s a shock when Sid once again wakes out of a sound sleep to bolt for the bathroom. After he’s finished retching, he rests his forehead against the wall next to the toilet and firmly tells himself it’s a shitty coincidence and nothing more. 

This time, he’s brushing his teeth when the door drifts open. 

“Okay, Sid?” Geno’s eyes look huge and concerned in the dim light. 

Sid spits mouthwash and swallows down panic. “Of course. Maybe that shrimp we grilled wasn’t quite cooked enough, I don’t know.”

Geno looks unconvinced, but Sid can’t bear to hear any of his own half-articulated suspicions come out of Geno’s mouth.

Sid says, “Let’s just go back to bed, okay? You -- you have a long trip tomorrow.”

Geno gives him a long look but lets it go. Sid breathes a silent sigh of relief and follows him back to bed. He spoons up against Geno, clasping him around the waist, and breathing in the sleep-warm skin of his back. He forces himself to relax, to breathe evenly until he’s opening his eyes to his empty bed in the morning.

He really, really doesn’t want to talk about this, not today, it’s Geno’s last day, their last day together for months. 

Geno lets him avoid it all day. But Geno searches his eyes when they’re saying goodbye and there’s a hint of worry there in Geno’s dark eyes. Sid can’t deal with it right now, so he leans up for a kiss, loses himself in the sensation of Geno here with him, saving it up to last him over the months they’ll be apart. 

“Time to head to the airport, eh?” He says, finally, and Geno nods reluctantly.

~*~*~*~

The summer is good: ordinary but not, with training and the hockey school and the Cup days and their birthdays and yet more training to keep them busy, in and among their conversations via text and their snapchat streak of silly pictures. 

Still, it overhangs his consciousness, as he goes about his business, a little frisson of discomfort that he can’t quite ignore whenever he thinks of Geno. it’s always in the back of his mind, and he feels like even when they skype or talk on the phone, there’s this fraught expectation that Geno’s trying to talk about something that Sid really, really doesn’t want to address. 

As the summer winds down and it’s getting to be time to head back to Pittsburgh, Sid’s worry ratchets up. He doesn’t even want to think about the possibility of not being able to bite Geno anymore. 

Last summer he’d been counting down days to see Geno again, the usual itch under his skin of getting back to hockey had been even more intense when he’d been looking forward to seeing Geno again. This year, though, the anticipation is shot through with a thread of dread. 

Reuniting had been so easy last year; now it’s complicated. 

“Can’t wait to see, Sid,” Geno says earnestly, the night before Sid heads back to Pittsburgh.

Sid can’t help but smile. “Me too, Geno,” he says. He still loves Geno even if things are hard right now. He has to believe they can fix it, mostly by being together again, getting into a routine, and surely, _surely_ , the reaction he had was a fluke, right? He barely lets himself think about it, but he knows it won’t happen again. 

~*~*~*~

Despite the lingering sense memory of getting sick, there’s nothing unappealing about the scent and the warmth of Geno along his side, after long months apart.

Sid is straddling Geno’s hips, pressing his ass against Geno’s dick and Geno gasps gratifyingly. Sid squirms down so he’s pressed all along Geno’s body, and he can get his face into Geno’s neck. He breathes in, and it’s so good that his gums tingle, and he’s opening his mouth without thinking about it. It’s pure instinct when he brushes his teeth against the tendon in Geno’s neck, licks the tender skin and his fangs are dropping and he’s about to sink right in when Geno twitches underneath him, tenses a little. Sid pauses and Geno says, “Uh, Sid, maybe not, right now?”

Sid jerks his face away and rolls off Geno. “Sorry, sorry, I just -- I thought --” Maybe Geno had changed his mind about wanting Sid to feed from him. Maybe he’s changed his mind about _everything_ , and Sid wasn’t reading the signals right. 

“I’m think we need talk about this, Sid.” Geno says quietly, taking Sid’s hand and twining their fingers together. 

Sid wants to roll his eyes, wants to scoff, wants to scornfully refuse. He tries to pull his hand away, press himself upright, but Geno holds him fast. “I’m let you avoid all summer, but not anymore, Sid.” 

“I wasn’t avoiding anything,” Sid says sharply. “You’re overreacting.”

Geno’s voice is steely when he speaks. “No, I’m not. You get sick, when you bite me.”

Sid’s stomach lurches so hard it actually hurts. “It only happened once,” he says stubbornly.

Geno lets go of his hand, and sits up in one swift movement. “Twice, Sid. Don’t lie!” 

Sid would rather be anywhere but here. “I still think it was a fluke,” he says.

“It’s not, Sid,” Geno insists. “It’s problem, and if we want to be together, we need to fix.”

Sid’s breath catches. He puts his hand up over his eyes, which feel hot. His pulse pounds in his ears. “Okay then,” he says dully. He gets off the bed and grabs the shirt he’d tossed off, pulls it over his head. 

Geno’s just looking at him, mouth dropped open. “Sid, what --”

“You should probably go,” Sid says. Geno just said that he doesn’t want to be together if Sid can’t bite him, and he didn’t let Sid bite him, so.

“Sid!” Geno says. “Don’t be dumb!”

Sid leaves Geno sitting there in the middle of the mussed bed and goes downstairs. He puts the kettle on, on autopilot, to make himself some chamomile tea. His stomach is queasy. He’s sitting in the dark living room with his mug in front of him, listening for Geno to come downstairs, open the door, and leave.

Next thing he knows, though, he’s blinking himself awake, drooling into the couch cushions, his cold and half-drunk mug of tea on the coffee table. Geno’s standing over him, shaking his head. 

“You done being drama?” He asks, sounding amused and way too awake. 

“What the fuck, Geno,” Sid says, pushing himself upright and rubbing his eyes. His neck is sore. Sleeping on the couch is stupid.

“Sleep on couch, because talk about feelings too hard?” Geno’s tone is mocking, and it’s too early to put up with his shit. 

“Fuck you,” he says. “Why are you still here?”

Geno stares at him, mouth twisting. “I’m here because we’re not done talk yet. Last night you leave, like child, but I’m stay for talk, like adult.”

“You’re such a fucking bully,” Sid mutters, but his heart’s not in it. He slumps back into the couch.

Geno narrows his eyes at him. “That’s better. We talk, we fix. Figure out what’s wrong, then bite more.” He tilts his head, exposing the long line of his throat. 

Sid swallows convulsively against the saliva from the glands around his fangs, which are itching to drop, despite everything. "I thought you said we couldn’t, you know.” 

“Sid. Don’t be dumb.”

“I’ve never heard of this happening before, is the thing," Sid finally says.

"Is -- little bit weird, maybe," Geno says, and Sid's heart sinks.

"In Russia, is remedy? Maybe here too, but I'm -- not know." Geno rummages around in his backpack, on the floor at his feet. He holds out a little vial.

"I don't want to take some random thing, G," Sid tells him, curling his hands into fists on his lap. "All I need is for something to hit the headlines about how a controlled substance showed up in my bloodwork." he trails off, a different kind of nauseous as he imagines the guys on SportsNet or NBC gobbling down a juicy morsel like Crosby being on performance enhancers. “And no offense, but Russia doesn’t exactly have a great track record around things athletes can take.”

"Okay," Geno says, rolling his eyes. "I’m find what people use here, and we try that instead."

Sid makes an abortive hand gesture. "Sorry," he says.

Geno lifts his eyebrows. "You -- not want?"

Sid doesn't know how to put into words that he still wants it more than anything, but he hates the idea of Geno having to do this for him. "I can do the research instead," he offers.

Geno narrows his eyes assessingly. “Had whole summer for research, and you not do. So maybe we do together." He pulls his laptop out of his bag and plops on the couch next to Sid.

“What, now?” He feels gross.

“You go shower, I make coffee, then we do,” Geno says, his tone certain.

~*~*~*~

Their research is hampered by the fact that Sid doesn’t even know what search terms to use, not to mention how distracting it is to be so close to Geno. 

“It’s like, when you sneeze, around cat, or when peanuts make kids sick,” Geno says.

“Oh, an allergy? But --” that seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? That an undead person could have something as mundane as an allergy to someone else’s blood. 

“Just try.” 

Sid types “allergic reaction blood vampire” into google and Geno leans into his space to read as they scroll through the results. There’s a lot of weird shit, but they find a magic practitioner who’s based near Pittsburgh, so they request an appointment.

They fit it in among team meetings and practice and their schedule is full enough that Sid has to skip his pregame nap. It’s only the preseason, but still. 

“It’s scrimmage, Sid, with team. Don’t need same routine as for real games,” Geno looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Says you,” Sid grumbles. 

Geno makes soothing noises at him and promises he’ll win even if Sid doesn’t follow every step of his routine. 

“You can’t promise that, G,” he says, as he parks. 

The practitioner is a tall, imposing woman with grey hair and a no-nonsense demeanor. She introduces herself as Marjorie Brown and shakes each of their hands firmly, ushering them into a room off the front hall of her home that’s set up like a doctor’s exam room.

“What’s this about, gentlemen,” she asks, once they’re sitting.

Sid opens his mouth, but it’s Geno who answers. 

“Sid’s vampire, he feeds from me and gets sick.”

She nods thoughtfully. “I can probably help you with that. Let’s start with a blood test, then, shall we?”

She takes out a tray of equipment and draws three vials of Geno’s blood with equipment that looks exactly like what you’d see in any doctor’s office. 

“The simplest explanation is that there’s something at work not unlike a dietary intolerance,” she says. Sid’s heart sinks. Does that mean Geno will have to eat weird things, or avoid things he likes, just so Sid can drink from him? 

“I’ll test this for common allergens,” she explains. “Now, for you, Mr. Crosby, we need you to spit in a vial.”

Sid stares at her. “Really?”

She nods crisply. “The research is spotty, but what we know about vampire blood allergies suggests that it usually results from an enzymatic imbalance in the saliva.”

Sid complies, and they watch as she carefully labels the vials.

“Ma’am,” Geno says. 

“Yes?” 

“I’m bring -- Russian remedy?” He holds it out.

“Oh, fascinating,” she breathes, reaching for the little bottle. Geno hands it over. “May I examine this in my lab?”

Lab. Sid can hardly believe it. She’s a magical practitioner, a _witch_ , for all intents and purposes, but she’s doing actual scientific research, as far as he can tell.

She must correctly interpret the incredulous look on his face, because she smiles at him, her gaze softening behind her steel glasses. “There’s no reason magic can’t be practiced according to the scientific method, you know. It’s not so different from breaking down a hockey play according to statistics and analytics. Studying it more closely doesn't take away from the -- forgive me -- the magic of it.”

Sid blinks. “I guess not,” he says.

“Now. Let me test all these things, and see if we can find an easy solution. Please refrain from drinking from Mr. Malkin in the meantime.” There’s a gleam in her eye that makes Sid want to squirm a little, but he forces himself to hold eye contact and shake her hand firmly. “Does your schedule permit you to return next week, the same time?” 

Geno’s got his phone out and they agree on next Thursday at 2 p.m.

He trails Geno back out to the car and can’t help a certain sense of letdown, maybe. It all seemed so ordinary, and it took hardly any time at all.

“Still have time for quick nap, if you let me drive,” Geno tells him, wide-eyed.

Sid narrows his eyes and tosses him the keys.  
~*~*~*~

Sid’s nervous ahead of seeing their practitioner again. It’s been a weird week. He’s been on edge and Geno’s been gingerly maneuvering around his prickliness. Sid wishes he could find it in himself to be sweeter with Geno, now that they’re back together, but finds himself settling for not openly hostile. 

Even in bed, things are weird, like they can’t go back to how good it was before Sid bit him. They feel out of synch, to Sid, the easy rhythm they’ve always had feels just out of reach. Sid fervently hopes they can find that again before the season starts, or that their disconnect won’t carry over onto the ice. 

All told he’s glad when Thursday rolls around and at least maybe they can get some answers. 

It’s surprisingly simple. “Remember the enzymatic imbalance I mentioned?” she asks.

“That _is_ the problem, then?” Sid asks.

She hands him an ordinary pill bottle, which rattles as he takes it. “It is, indeed, and you can just take one of these with dinner any night you’re considering feeding from Mr. Malkin. The effect takes about a half hour to take hold, and lasts for four to six hours.”

Sid can’t believe it’s so easy.

“And, sorry, but you’re sure there’s nothing in here” -- he shakes the little bottle -- “that’s going to make my blood tests look weird, right?”

“Absolutely not.” She talks him through the ingredients list, and hands him a page with references and abstracts. “You can give this to the team trainers to keep on file, in case there’s ever a problem.”

Sid scans the page as Geno asks, “What about remedy I’m bring?”

“Ah, yes. It appears to have the same active ingredient as the one I’m prescribing for Mr. Crosby,” she says. “But of course it’s a tincture, instead of pills, which is common, I believe, for Russian practitioners, who adhere to different standards than here. There’s nothing wrong with it, though, and I’m quite sure its effects are quicker to work than the pills.”

Geno nods in satisfaction. 

“How common is it,” Sid blurts. He didn’t exactly mean to ask that. But he can’t deny he’s felt like a freak ever since the first time it happened months ago.

She lifts a shoulder. “The numbers are somewhat hard to come by, because a lot of people rely on remedies like Mr. Malkin’s, here, and don’t ever talk to a formal practitioner.” She looks thoughtful. “It seems to run in families, the way food intolerances or sensitivities can, in humans.”

Food for thought, Sid thinks.

“I’m not need do anything different?” Geno asks her.

“Nope,” she says cheerfully. “There are folk remedies out there that ostensibly make human blood sweeter or more appealing, but there’s been even less research into that.” Her eyes dance as she adds, “You can experiment with that on your own.”

Geno laughs, bright and loud. Sid shakes his head at him.

“Thank you,” Sid tells Marjorie.

“My pleasure,” she says, and waves as they head out the door.

~*~*~*~

Sid keeps the pill bottle in his pocket, and when they sit down for dinner -- salmon, asparagus, and red peppers on the grill, and oven-roasted potatoes -- Sid opens the bottle and swallows a pill. 

Geno raises his eyebrows. “You bite me, tonight?”

Sid is momentarily abashed, he hadn’t meant to presume. But then he sees the gleam in Geno’s eye. He lifts his chin. “You got a problem with that?”

Geno smiles at him, small and pleased. “Nope.”

After they clean up from dinner, they watch a movie on the couch, for awhile, before it devolves into making out. Geno finally pulls away enough to say, “Sid, let’s go upstairs.”

Sid climbs up from where he was straddling Geno’s lap and offers him a hand up. 

They take turns in the bathroom, and Geno crawls into bed next to him, running a hand up Sid’s arm. “Pill’s not make you feel weird, or anything?” 

Sid shrugs and shakes his head. “I can’t tell I took anything at all.”

“Hope soon you be able to tell,” Geno says with a mischievous twist to his mouth. 

Sid has to kiss him soundly, for that. 

He pulls back, breathless, and says, “I think we’re still wearing too many clothes.” 

Geno laughs and shoves Sid aside to pull off his own shirt and wriggle out of his boxers. Sid scrambles to do likewise, and grabs the lube off his night table and drops it on the pillow beside them.

Geno drags him back down and Sid stretches out on top of him, lining up perfectly and homing in on that sweet, vulnerable spot on Geno’s neck. Geno shudders under him and tilts his head away to give Sid room. Sid inhales and drags his nose along Geno’s throat before opening his mouth and licking delicately at the thin skin, positioning Geno perfectly under him. Geno’s clutching at Sid’s back, and he’s panting a little, breaths short against Sid’s hair. 

“Please, Sid,” he says, and there’s no way Sid can deny him. Sid opens his mouth wide, lets his fangs drop, and sinks in. Sid would moan if his mouth wasn’t full of Geno’s rich, sweet blood, but Geno’s soft noises as his hips jerk against Sid’s just wind him up tighter. 

He drinks for long, slow, syrupy moments before forcing himself to ease back, licking gently at Geno to slow the flow down to a trickle, before Geno’s thrusting hips start to feel urgent.

The sex is almost an afterthought, after that. It’s great, of course, but Sid’s mind keeps skipping back to the soft yield of Geno’s throat under his fangs, how good it felt, how much he wants to do it forever, how desperately he hopes that the remedy makes it so he can drink from Geno for as long as they both want.

~*~*~*~

Sid opens his eyes and the realization that he didn’t get sick in the night hits immediately. He lies there smiling at the ceiling for a moment, before rolling back into Geno’s warmth and pushing his face into Geno’s neck, finding the spot he bit last night and sucking on it gently. He dozes for a little while, and then blinks his way back to consciousness when Geno shifts beside him.

“You don’t get sick?” His voice is morning-rough against Sid’s hair. 

“Mm-mh,” Sid answers, smiling without even meaning to.

He’s looking forward to lots more mornings like this one, stretched out ahead of them. To learning where he likes biting Geno best, where Geno will like it best. What he tastes like in the morning or the evening, if it’s different with the seasons or based on what he’s been eating. 

Geno puts an arm around him, and draws him closer, putting a thick thigh between Sid’s, and rubbing his dick against Sid. Not like he’s starting something, exactly -- just because he can. 

Sid sighs. His limbs all still feel sleep-heavy, and he’s glad they don’t have to get up quite yet. 

Geno presses a kiss to his forehead, and then pushes away. “Gonna go --” he gestures toward the bathroom, as he rolls out of bed. 

Geno curls back in next to him, where Sid’s propped up against the headboard. Geno slings an arm around Sid’s middle, and Sid rests his hand on Geno’s forearm, squeezing it gently. He slides his free arm around Geno’s back, broad and beautiful, stroking it lightly as the moment stretches between them.

“I’m glad we could get here,” he admits.

“Here, Pittsburgh? Your bed?” Geno asks, and Sid can’t quite tell if it’s a genuine question or if Geno’s being a troll.

“You know, here, together.”

“We’re together, last season,” Geno points out.

“Yeah, but --”

“You think I’m not want -- not want be with you, if you can’t drink from me?”

“Well. Maybe?” Sid says.

All the human-vampire love stories end that way, after all: a vampire getting to drink from their true love, proof that their love was meant to be.

“Think you watch too many dumb movies,” Geno says into the silence between them.

Sid winces. “Well, I don’t know, you think it’s supposed to be this hard?”

Geno’s voice is gentle when he says, “I’m think it doesn’t matter, Sid. What matters is we can still do what we want. Just takes a little help, for you, is all.”


End file.
